Alternative DNS root
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In addition to the Internet's main DNS root (currently consisting of 13 nominal root nameservers working in agreement with ICANN), several organizations operate alternative DNS roots (often referred to as alt roots). Each alternative root has its own set of root nameservers and its own set of top-level domains (TLDs).
The BIZ TLD created by Pacific Root was in operation before ICANN proposed running BIZ, and at least one of the alternative root servers resolves BIZ to Pacific Root's. There are BIZ domain names that exist in different roots and point to different IP addresses. The possibility of such conflicts, and their potential for destabilizing the Internet, is the main source of controversy surrounding alt roots.
Alt roots can in general be divided into two groups; those run for idealist or ideological reasons, and those run as profit-making enterprises.
Whilst technically trivial to set up, actually running a reliable root server network in the long run is a serious undertaking, requiring multiple servers to be kept running 24/7 in geographically diverse locations. During the dot-com boom, some alt-root providers believed that there were substantial profits to be made from providing alternative top-level domains. Only a small proportion of ISPs actually use any of the zones served by alt-root operators, generally sticking to the ICANN-specified root servers. This in turn led to the commercial failure of several alternative DNS root providers.
List of alternative root zones
Among the most well-known alt-root zones are:
- Open Root Server Confederation (ORSC)
- The ORSC root zone is too large to be fully quoted here. The ORSC root zone can be downloaded from http://dns.vrx.net/tech/rootzone/db.root
- OpenNIC [1] (http://www.opennic.unrated.net)
- GLUE -- root server administration
- INDY -- independent news
- GEEK -- anything geeky
- NULL -- miscellaneous non-commercial individual sites
- OSS -- Open Source Software
- PARODY -- parodies
- FUR (http://opennic.chez-vrolet.net/) -- furry fans and furry people charter (http://opennic.chez-vrolet.net/charter.txt)
- AlterNIC (stopped in 1997)
- EXP --
- LLC --
- LNX --
- LTD --
- MED --
- NIC --
- NOC --
- PORN --
- XXX --
- eDNS (stopped in 1998??)
- BIZ -- General business use
- CORP -- For use by corporations
- FAM -- For and about Family
- K12 -- For and about Kids
- NPO -- Non-profit organizations
- PER -- Personal Domain Name services
- WEB -- Web-based sites (ie: web pages)
- Iperdome (http://www.iperdome.com/) (stopped in 1999)
- PER -- Personal Domain Name services
- see the announcement (http://www.iperdome.com/releases/970304.htm)
- later the TLDs changed to:
- BIZ -- General business use
- CORP -- For use by corporations
- GAY -- For and about the Gay Community
- K12 -- For and about Kids
- NPO -- Non-profit organizations
- POL -- Related to Poland and Polish organizations
- WEB -- Web-based sites (ie: web pages)
- Pacific Root (many TLDs, not all listed here)
- AIS --
- BIO --
- CAL --
- IND --
- JOB --
- LIB --
- NPO --
- PPP --
- SAT --
- WWW --
- BIZ --
- ETC --
- MEN --
- NGO --
- NOT --
- New.Net
- SHOP --
- TRAVEL -- this is now proposed as a new TLD in ICANN-operated DNS (http://www.icann.org/tlds/stld-apps-19mar04/travel.htm)
- TECH --
- KIDS --
- LOVE --
- CHURCH --
- GAME --
- MP3 --
- MED --
- XXX --
- CLUB --
- INC --
- LAW --
- FAMILY --
- SPORT --